Apparently the Bankruptcy Court in Atlanta is not as secure as we thought. According to an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, there was a break-in –
“My theory is, because he had a mask on, he got through security,” said Judge Paul W. Bonapfel, a federal bankruptcy judge who reported the crime last week. When he got to work, Bonapfel discovered that a marauder had broken in to his 14th-floor office and eaten nearly half an apple.
But the raccoon goofed: it left a trail of tracks across a stack of federal memos. The judge called in his staff and others to solicit their opinions. Their verdict: Procyon lotor, a raccoon, had busted in. … In the days following the apple caper, jurists and their staff reported other misdemeanors — chocolate chip cookies stolen from a 10th-floor desk; a purloined sandwich on the 9th; a packet of dried soup stolen from the 23rd floor.
[The GSA] hired a firm that specializes in catching wildlife that has gone astray. Its employees slipped a wire trap in the ceiling over the offices assigned to Judge Mary Grace Diehl — a veritable raccoon highway, based on reports. Workers baited the trap with tuna, closed the tiles, and advised the judges to wait. In addition to being blind, justice can be slow. Their wait ended Monday when Jean Sloan, Diehl’s judicial assistant, heard a chirping overhead. “I thought, ‘Maybe there’s a dove up there,’” Sloan said. Then, she thought again, and called for help….
GSA workers theorize Russell wriggled into the heating system from outside, then climbed pipes and ventilation ducts to commit crimes in the southeastern corner of the building. Nearby construction may have driven the creature to seek quieter digs, they think…
“We don’t have jurisdiction over raccoons,” said Bonapfel. “We leave that to the executive branch.”